


If My Wishes Came True (It Would Have Been You)

by mltrefry



Series: It Was Always You [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale's Name is Ezra (Good Omens), Daydreams, M/M, One Shot, Pining, it's a meh ending, it's not a happy ending but it's not a bad ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25834249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mltrefry/pseuds/mltrefry
Summary: Gabriel gets a piece of mail that makes him imagine a snapshot of what might have been had Crowley never showed up.A one-shot
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Gabriel/Aziraphale (Sorta)
Series: It Was Always You [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765738
Comments: 26
Kudos: 55





	If My Wishes Came True (It Would Have Been You)

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been doing a lot of concrete writing lately, but this came to mind while listening to a song so I thought I would throw it out into the void. It's always a little fun seeing it from the "losing" side sometimes.
> 
> ALSO! Hey, you came this far, you know the main story. You know, that main story that left out all the scenes where things go a certain way. Like, in the bedroom? Well @Phantomstardemon wrote a one shot of Ezra and Anthony's first time that you can read here: [https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632409 ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632409)
> 
> Now, on with the angst

**December 2019**

Gabriel entered his London flat and tossed his briefcase aside. He moved to the Island in the kitchen area, glancing out the large, picturesque windows with a view of the city to die for, and chucked his mail on the counter. He watched the snow flutter down as he took off his tie, wondering not for the first time if maybe he would feel better overall if he had simply gotten a small, stupid tree just to sit on a table or something.

Maybe if he had, he’d have actually agreed to the date with the lovely woman he kept running into in the coffeehouse near his office. Carmine had struck up a conversation with him while they waited for their orders every day for a few weeks. Today she slipped him her business card, told him if he changed his mind about grabbing dinner, give her a call.

He came up with a lot of reasons why it wouldn’t work. 

She was too much like him, he could tell. Ambitious, ruthless when needed. She was a redhead, which wasn’t a deal-breaker but it rubbed a sore spot. She wasn’t-

He shook his head and started going through the stack on the counter, sifting through envelopes of various colors and sizes, many stamped internationally, only a few from within England.

One caught his eye, had him stop in his tracks. 

Heart beating rapidly, Gabriel prayed that he wasn’t about to pull out a wedding invitation, and desperately wanted to sigh with relief when it wasn’t.

But that’s because it was so much worse.

_Merry Christmas from the Crowley-Fells._

Gabriel looked at the card in his hand and fought down the visceral urge to react. Scream. Cry. Rage. Burn it. Tear it up. Tear it in half. 

That last one wouldn’t have really mattered. The picture, a lovely one snapped sometime in November just when the holiday decorations were going up around the cities around the country, wasn’t situated just right. Adam was with Crowley, and Ezra had Warlock. You can’t have Ezra without Adam, and Gabriel had never wanted anything less, not from the moment it became clear that Adam was going to be part of the package.

A package he still sometimes felt had been within his grasp before Crowley showed up like a bad penny. He’d waited nearly five years for Ezra, he’d have waited however long was needed. 

Gabriel sighed, debating whether or not to put the damn thing out where he could see it. Not like he would for long. For the first time in years, he was going to go back to the States for Christmas, use a couple of weeks of his vacation to spend it with his family, and lick his metaphorical wounds there.

His mom had been especially doting when he told her of Ezra’s final choice. He hadn’t expected anything different, though she didn’t exactly go on about how he’d made a poor choice as Gabriel had half hoped. 

_“Well, Gabby, if I’m being honest… he’s a wonderful man, but he didn’t seem as taken by you as you were with him.”_

Gabriel never told Ezra that had been one of the things that made him go to the party where Ezra and Crowley announced their engagement. His mom had pointed out he may have seen things so differently than Ezra. And nothing had changed her mind. Not the past actions of Crowley, not Ezra’s always flirting with the line of dating and not when it came to Gabriel. She also apparently didn’t think _that_ one night meant much.

_“Honestly, Gabriel Jonathon Haven. I thought I had raised you to be better than that. He was grieving! What were you thinking?”_

So, tail between his legs, Gabriel had gone and began to patch up his friendship with Ezra.

Glancing at the card, he cringed when he remembered his accusing Crowley of cheating just a couple of months ago.

But he’d been so certain! So damn certain. He’d even seen the guy - the brother- go into the Garden in London like he owned the place. And, well, yeah, he _did_ hope to some degree that Ezra might consider him after tossing Crowley to the curb, but not the way everyone expected.

He certainly didn’t picture Ezra turning to him in a cheesy, movie way, swooning, and all that rot. He’d hoped that maybe he would move into Gabriel’s old house, the one yet to be sold while Gabriel was in London getting a flat. He imagined Ezra settling down in the house that was bought with him in mind and maybe begin to see that maybe it would be worth it to give Gabriel a try. 

But that wasn’t how it happened, and probably never how it would have gone if it did. Gabriel was just happy they were still friends.

After a fierce debate, Gabriel set the card on the bookshelf he had a few others on, even put it in a place of honor front and center. He and Crowley were getting one better these days now that there was no competition between them. Similar to their younger days in college when Ezra had been with Oscar and there was no trying to win him over. Except now they talked business when they were in the same room, Gabriel planning on taking on the London shop after the holidays at the end of the fiscal year. 

He could make nice with Ezra’s fiance.

 _Fiance_.

He looked at the card again, scoffing a little this time at the premature “Crowley-Fells”, but admitting only in the deepest recesses of his mind that it was a long time coming anyway. 

Moving to his sofa, the rest of his mail forgotten, Gabriel slumped down and looked at the picture from afar. Mostly he looked at his sunshine, at Ezra’s radiant smile. He imagined, for a moment, that the boy in his arms wasn’t a future stepson but Adam. 

He knew the spot where the picture was snapped. A wonderful little area in Tadfield that, as soon as the winter snow fell and the lights went up, reminded people of that classic holiday scene from every movie of storefronts and streetlights. There was a square a little ways down, normally a simple green space for people to sit around, but where a big tree was put up and lit every year. 

The tree was up but not lit in the family photo, it being daytime and all. 

He could imagine, in a different world where Crowley never showed up, going there with Ezra and Adam….

_“It’ll be fine, sunshine.” Gabriel would say as he walked with Ezra to the square, Adam only a little way up ahead._

_“I know,” Ezra would sigh, looking at his new son and smiling sadly as Adam beamed up at the tree. “It’s just, well, the first holidays without Eliza. I have to do it all on my own.”_

_“You have me, you know you do.” Gabriel would say. Because he would have been there, all the time, right from the beginning. He’d have helped with Ezra’s move, and maybe bought them dinner to share. He could imagine that would have sat on the sofa together and talked until it was time to go home. But Ezra would offer the sofa to him, and they would wake in the morning and go to the park with the three of them. He’d have been there for the first day of school and for Eliza’s birthday. He’d have been there for it all, slowly making it clear he always would be._

_Ezra would look at him then, the snow falling around him but hardly touching him. Too bright and too warm for snow, his sunshine, and Ezra would smile up at him. “I do have you, don’t I?” He would say, taking Gabriel’s hand and giving it a squeeze._

_Would he have tried to kiss him then? No, probably not. He would let Ezra set the pace, set the rules._

_He imagined it would be New Year's eve when that would happen._

_Gabriel had wanted it to happen the New Year before when Anathema had invited them all out to the pub as her cousin had been in town._

For a moment, Gabriel’s fantasy got sidetracked as he recalled the man Anathema introduced to Ezra that night. He had been attractive, a family trait no doubt, given Anathema’s beauty, and he really couldn’t blame Ezra for wanting to spend time with him. Gabriel had wanted to say it was because the man looked a bit like Oscar, but that wasn’t really a fair reason. 

But New Year's Eve….

_He’d have gone to Ezra’s flat because Ezra wouldn’t go out, not that night, not with Adam in his care. Gabriel would go over with champagne, something more palatable than wine, and they’d drink it together._

_They would kiss at midnight. Softly at first, meant merely to be tradition, but Ezra would hover, linger. He would then lean in, kiss him again, and again, and Gabriel would merely let it happen._

_He would cup Ezra’s cheek, maybe thread his fingers in his hair, but not let it get too heated. They wouldn’t fall into bed then. That would wait. A few dates later…._

_But that moment in the square, in front of the tree - weeks before he would have a chance to show Ezra he loved him…._

_Gabriel could imagine someone asking to take their picture for them as Ezra and he fumbled with one of their phones, trying to get all three of them in the photo as well as part of the tree. Gabriel would pick up Adam and put him on his shoulders, and Ezra would step in closer. The stranger would take the picture, smile, tell them they were a beautiful family. Ezra would blush and stammer and try to correct them, and Gabriel would chuckle and thank them. The stranger would maybe eye them knowingly as if to say “no, you aren’t a family yet. But you will be.”_

Gabriel’s phone chimed, snapping him out of the daydream. He chided himself because he knew this wasn’t going to help him get over Ezra. He wasn’t going to move on if he still allowed himself to imagine what could have been. 

He took his device out of his pocket to discover it was from the one person playing on his mind. Opening it, it turned out to be another picture.

Crowley covered in flour, head thrown back and laughing, Adam holding the bag that had clearly been sat down on the table too hard, more than a little dusting of it in his hair, red-faced and smiling. Warlock on the other side of his father clearly caught giggling.

_Sunshine: What am I going to do with them?_

He was trying to think of a reply that didn’t betray the stab to his heart, the bursting of his balloon, the dirt on his grave as it were. They were friends, friends shared pictures of each other's families. 

This was Ezra’s family, like it or not.

Before he could find the words, another message came through.

_Sunshine: Sorry, dear fellow. I meant to send that to Anathema._

Gabriel took another deep breath.

 _Gabriel: It’s alright sunshine_.

And then, because he knew he needed to say it. 

Because it was true. 

Because he had to let go.

_Gabriel: That should be your Christmas card next year._

He put the phone aside, got up, and looked at the photo card closer. Not just at Ezra this time, nor Adam, but at all four of them. 

How utterly happy the boys looked in it, at having a brother the same age they could share things with. At Crowley, eyes the wrong color but shining clear with love. 

_Merry Christmas from the Crowley-Fells._

He imagined them in the square. He imagined Crowley trying to take the picture of all four of them, the boys egging him on, teasing him. He imagined a stranger coming up to them, offering to take the picture. He imagined both Ezra and Crowley thanking them, finding it easy to smile on cue. The stranger would tell them that they were a beautiful family, and Ezra would blush and thank them.

Because they’d be right.

They were a beautiful family. 

His phone chimed, and Gabriel went back to it.

 _Sunshine:_ _It just might be._

Before Gabriel was tempted to slump into another daydream, perhaps involving cookies and whatnot, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the business card from Carmine. He started dialing her number, then changed his mind.

A text.

And a start. Or, at least, a way forward. A way of moving on. A hope that if he did open a card next year, and see Anthony Crowley covered in flour and the boys giggling at his sides, Gabriel could grin. He could smile and laugh and not pine.

He could be happy for Ezra, honestly happy that _he_ was happy.

It was, after all, all he ever wanted.


End file.
